If anything, he’s more busy now than when he held the dual roles of Georgia’s head football coach and athletic director. Dooley can be found anywhere from a board room to a classroom to a television studio to a Civil War battlefield with a few stops at home to tend his garden in between.

“I’d like to say that things have slowed down, but they haven’t,” Dooley said. “I’m probably doing more now than when I was coaching. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but it sure feels that way sometimes. I’m busy, but that’s good and I like it that way.”

Dooley has not been a member of Georgia’s administration since 2004. He casts a Paul Bunyan-sized shadow not only across the University of Georgia, but the entire state. Although to Dooley, he’s just giving back to the community that’s been part of his life for nearly half a century.

“One of the last things I did when I was athletic director was hire Mark Richt,” Dooley said. “So that’s special to me. I mean, I’ve got a 40-year investment in the University of Georgia and Georgia athletics. I’m a big cheerleader for Georgia even though I’ve got this conflict that comes up this week when Tennessee comes to town. But I still feel a connection to Georgia and I always will. It’s hard not to feel a connection with someplace you’ve been for a long time. We’ve lived at the same address for 45 years.”

Dooley’s loyalties are put to the test when Georgia and Tennessee play because his son Derek Dooley coaches the Volunteers. As he did the last time Tennessee visited two years ago, Dooley will stay at home and watch the game on television and let Derek’s mother, Barbara, represent the family at Sanford Stadium.

Retired Dooley became a Renaissance man

Dooley’s weekly schedule reads like a campaign itinerary.

He has just started doing a weekly video program on the Southeastern Conference’s website. He is among 17 former coaches, including 13 Hall of Famers, who participate in the college football Legends Poll, which begins with a weekly conference call so the pollsters can debate the merits of the teams.

Dooley is a consultant for the startup of Kennesaw State’s football program, so he makes trips to Kennesaw nearly every week.

He belongs to the Civil War Round Table and has just written the forward for a book about Civil War monuments in Georgia. He has written four more books on things such as his coaching philosophy, Georgia traditions and gardening. And he is on the board of directors of Athens Technical College.

Last summer, Dooley was inducted into the Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame. He also carries a full load of speaking engagements, public appearances and book signings to fill the gaps.

In his spare time, Dooley became an expert horticulturalist and can be found tending a substantial garden at his home.

“The biggest problem he has is he can’t tell anybody no,” his wife Barbara Dooley said. “You’ve heard the phrase, ‘I’m just a girl that can’t say no.’ Well, he’s a guy that can’t say no. He really is staying busy. I used to complain that when he was a coach he was always gone. But at least when he was coaching, he was in town four months out of the year straight. Now he’s just gone.”

Even when he was an administrator at Georgia, Dooley had a far-flung field of interests and an inquisitive mind. Now that he’s retired, Dooley has the time to devote to history, gardening, sharing his 40-plus years of expertise on collegiate sports administration plus whatever has captured his attention since then.

“I’ve always had a lot of different interests,” Dooley said. “Even when I was coaching, I’d take a course here and there on different things, that’s how I got into gardening. I’ve always liked history and especially the Civil War because that’s such a big part of living here, so I took history courses. I was always curious about trees and plants and then got bit by the bug and one course led to another. But I’ve always had a lot more interests than I had time to spend on them. Now I’ve got time and I want to learn as much as I can.”

Some of Dooley’s interests appeared and he didn’t know he had them.

When Dooley Gardens next to Georgia’s track was dedicated, Dooley found himself staring at the statue of him and wondering how the sculptor made it. That led him to an art history course, a stack of books on the subject and a new-found fascination in it.

“When you go into these museums and you look at things, you need to have some basic, overall idea of what you’re looking at,” Dooley said. “So I’ve gotten an appreciation of these artists and their incredible talent. It just amazes me how they can do what they do and how they can make these such wonderful things.”

Richt, Dooley have family-like bond

Dooley’s most visible legacy at Georgia beyond the trophy room is Mark Richt. Dooley hired Richt after the 2000 season and Richt has the third-longest tenure in Georgia history, trailing Bulldog legends Dooley and Wally Butts.

“Just the fact that he hired me is big,” Richt said. “There have been a lot of times when I’d come across things I didn’t quite know how to handle. I’d go to him and he’d tell me what he did if he had something similar along those lines that he had to handle. But he’d always say, ‘It’s your program, so you do what you think is best. You decide what to do.’ That was awesome.”

When Richt was thinking of hiring Brian VanGorder, who was then a relative unknown at Western Illinois, he asked Dooley’s advice about making the move.

“It was the kind of hire that wasn’t going to get anybody excited because nobody had heard of him,” Richt said. “So I asked Coach, ‘I think he’s the right man for the job, but I don’t know how he’d be received or even how you’d think about it.’ But Coach came back and said, ‘It’s your program and you do what you think is best. You can be happy the day you hire somebody or you can be happy with the results you get. If you believe in a guy, then you hire him.’”

Richt and Dooley talk regularly and Dooley does not offer unsolicited advice. Without really trying, Dooley has become Richt’s mentor and that bond has grown over the years, maybe more so since Dooley retired.

“It’s a personal connection,” Dooley said. “I’m connected to the University of Georgia. But I’m personally connected to Coach Richt. He was my last hire. It makes me feel good to see him down there coaching. The first crisis he went through was a couple of years ago and if you stay in this business long enough, you’re going to have to address something like that and he addressed it extremely well. I’m definitely proud of the way he has done that. I think he’s a pretty exceptional individual not just as a football coach, but as a person and with his family and the way he represents the university. That’s a special point of pride to me.”

Dooley continues to affect Georgia

Dooley was the football coach at Georgia from 1964 to 1988. He was also the athletic director from 1979 to 2004. He maintains an office on campus and still lives in Athens. Although Dooley has not taken an active role in Georgia athletics in eight years, his mark remains sharp.

“I’ve had a 40-plus year investment with this university,” Dooley said. “I am so tied to this university and this state, that I can’t really retire. To be as visible as I have been in this state, you just can’t ‘retire’ and go off to California or something. So I get asked to do a lot of things and I’m happy to do them. You just can’t do them all, that’s the problem.”

Dooley’s busy schedule includes plenty of time for Georgia. He and Barbara sponsor three athletic scholarships, and they attend a wide variety of events on campus, including many that aren’t related to sports.

“Coach Dooley, it seems like he’s busier now than ever before,” Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity said. “He is heavily involved in his books and the autographing piece that goes along with it. Obviously he’s a popular figure in this state and all around the South. When somebody’s reached that kind of stature like Coach Dooley, they’re always going to be very popular people. He’s very recognizable. He’s respected among his peers, and that’s evident by all the halls of fame he’s been named to over the years. It’s clearly obvious how he’s respected by his peers.”

Dooley is one of the few people in this day and age who have spent multiple decades in the same place. His only head coaching job was at Georgia and it stretched for 25 years. Although he had chances to leave, Dooley stayed, even in the rough times. His four decades of service to Georgia serve as an inspiration even for the newest generation of Bulldogs.

“He’s just dedicated to the G,” Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray said. “It’s true love. He might not have to work for the rest of his life and he’d be fine. He’d probably get free meals and this and that wherever he wants all around the state of Georgia just because of who he is and he’s such a legend. That just shows how dedicated he is to us and to this program and to the success of this program.”